Cleaning Up Memories
by b a y o - b a y o
Summary: [ tales of the abyss ] Anise cleans up Ion's room, and in the process, remembers many things about her and her naive friend . . . [ spoilers! ]


Hey everyone! This is Kandii-chan here, and with a Tales of the Abyss fanfiction! Until TotA gets its own neat little section, Tales of Symphonia will have to do. :3 This is a story dedicated to Ion x Anise. And yes, there are spoilers… BIG SPOILERS. For both of them. So consider this a warning – and if you get spoiled, you can't come to me saying I didn't warn yah. ;o

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Tales of the Abyss, or any of it's wonderful characters.

* * *

**Cleaning Up Memories**

ion **x **_an_ise

_© - C0TT0N k a n d ii -_

She stood standing in his room, a large cardboard box in her arms.

"Well, time to clean up!"

Anise Tatlin was in charge of cleaning today – or, more specifically, cleaning (former) Fon Master Ion's chambers. As she waltzed through the door with a big smile on her face, like always, she gently placed the box down on the clean carpet, closing the door silently behind her. Right when she heard the lock click, the happy grin she had plastered onto her face melted away – melting into a quivering frown. With her head downcast and her dark bangs shielding her eyes, she slowly dragged herself towards the oaken desk that held Ion's files, stopping just before it. She remembered standing in this spot many times before… after all, she was his personal guard. When he was here, she was in his room with him almost every other hour.

"Ion, you dork… having me clean up your room for you…"

Anise stepped back to loosely grab the box she had brought in, and plopped it right on top of his desk, beginning to neatly pile his belongings inside. Ion was gone now… more specifically, he was dead. She still couldn't believe her eyes when she witnessed his death. The scene was as clear as day – as bright as light itself: he had read the Seventh Fonstone out loud to Mohs and Luke, and in doing so, his power was depleted and he vanished. Simple as that. But that was only expected – he was a replica, after all. A strong replica… the replica of the original Ion.

As the petite female dropped random possessions one-by-one into the box, she couldn't help but remember all the meanings and memories each object held. A pencil box she pulled out from his drawer was the box she had given him after he had lost a couple hundred pencils and pens; a green brush that was sitting right next to the box was a brush she bought him when he didn't have anything else but ponytails to keep his vibrant hair nice and tidy; and then there was the box of band-aids he had in his other drawer that she had gotten for him after he had banged himself up by tripping into a bush just outside Daath. Anise held up the little box and smiled, "Heh, Ion never was the most graceful guy…"

She continued to wander around his office with a distant expression, taking down photos and documents and placing them carefully in the box. Every time she'd hold a picture of anything including Ion in it, she'd pause and just smile at him. The smile Ion had was like no other smile she'd seen – the smile of an angel. He was a perfect boy. He cared for others, fulfilled his duties, was responsible, considerate, charming, polite – everything a girl would want. If he were anything like his original, she could see why Arietta fell so in love with him…after all, Anise did take a strong liking to the green-haired boy after a year under his orders. Who wouldn't love a guy like Ion? He even made the hard-headed Luke like him after only a few hours of hanging around him; he was that good. Imagine what that would do to someone who worked under him as long as she did.

But despite the love that Anise harbored for him, she's been deceiving him this whole time… and it led to his demise.

Anise didn't want to acknowledge that. She didn't want to remember that. She didn't want to accept the fact that if only she had gone against Mohs's orders and protected Ion, like she was supposed to, then he could have lived. She didn't want to be reminded that she could have stayed with him longer. She denied the statement that she would've been able to see his beautiful smile once more – the smile that made her heart melt every time she saw it. She wanted to blame her Papa for making her family go bankrupt; she wanted to blame Mohs for making Ion read the fonstone; she wanted to blame Ion for letting himself do that. But there was no one to blame; no one else but herself. Time and time again she would bring up that thought, and she'd cry for hours. People wouldn't know it, but she would lock herself in her room and sob into a pillow. Tokunaga would try to soothe her, but it wouldn't help – nothing would help. There was only one cure for this heartache – one person…

"Ion…" Anise rubbed her thumb along the picture of Ion, thick tears dripping onto the translucent surface. She quickly placed it in the box, dropping another non-Ion-related picture on top of that.

She was almost done packing up his room. One more document to pack and she could get out of there and go get some ice cream or something. Anise held the document in her hands – it was the certificate confirming Ion's position. "Fon Master Ion…" she whispered, "_my_ Fon Master Ion." Thankfully, the last piece wasn't anything too heart-shattering. The guardian carefully planted it on top of the stack she had in the box – and she was done. She could go and tell Tritheim, and he could tell someone to take the box into the storage. Anise sighed, straightening herself up and wiping away her tears with the back of her glove. "This isn't like me… I'm so stupid. I gotta go get something to eat."

She began to walk away, her footsteps silent on the clean carpet. Circling around his table, she let her fingers trail across the dustless surface – until they came in contact with a small stand-up picture frame, with its back turned to her. Anise paused – she had missed something. "I'm even more ditzy this morning," she weakly laughed to herself. She picked up the frame and held it in the palm of her hand – and her breath was caught in her throat.

It was a picture of her and Ion out and about in Daath; Anise was dragging Ion towards the camera by his hand, and Ion was following with a dashing smile. But that wasn't what caught her attention. Written in the corner in thin black ink, with Ion's neat handwriting, were the words: _Anise, my most cherished love._

Anise fell to her knees, the picture pressed to her chest, and she cried.

* * *

And that's all, folks. Hopefully that wasn't too bad, eh? I haven't written anything like this since forever ago… actually, this is the first piece I've written since the schoolyear started, heh. Well, please review… I'd love it if you did. Ion x Anise forever. :3 


End file.
